Mary Jo Meisner oversaw wrenching change when the Journal and Sentinel were combined; leading readers and staffers afterwards is the challenging thing

Q. About 18 months after coming to the Milwaukee Journal as editor, you were named editor of the Journal Sentinel and charged with melding two very distinct - and distinctive - newspapers into one. The staffs of two competing newspapers had to be combined and about 80 positions were eliminated. The new newspaper had to be tailored to appeal to readers who were accustomed to their old paper of choice. How does a mere mortal editor handle such dramatic change?

A. My whole time here has been change. Everybody is going through change. There isn't a an editor in the country that isn't - or if they're not, they should be. But the change here has been fairly dramatic.

Q. What's the first step in managing really big change?

A. I think you have to be steeped in the newspaper business because you really have to know what has come before and what you stand for and what you believe in and also where you feel we - as an industry - are falling short. Out of that you can construct the appropriate kind of changes to make. I don't think you can have a couple of years in the business or necessarily be someone who is coming out of another industry and get in there and make appropriate changes to newspapers.

Q. You did a redesign for the new Journal Sentinel. Why?

A. We felt like we had to design a new paper with a whole new look because we had two very distinct newspapers in the market. To take the design of one or the other would have signaled to everybody that this is the paper we preferred. So we felt we had to start from scratch. We hired Mario Garcia to be the designer of the new paper. He's terrific.

Q. What were you trying to achieve with the redesign?

A. We felt it was important to do two things - to have a newspaper that people could access fairly quickly. You could get through it fast if you wanted to. Therefore, there would be brief packages, digests, summaries, promotional devices, things that would allow you to move through the paper quickly, if you're running in the morning - which everybody is - to get a good sense of what is going on. At the same time, the paper had to be a paper that signaled depth and perspective and that it had meaty stuff that you could dig into when you did have time.

Q. The look was quite different, too, wasn't it?

A. We had a lot of guideposts and skyboxes and things like that. A lot more color than either paper had before. Every section front has color in it and there is often back-page color. That in itself was fairly startling to our readership.

Q. How did the readers respond?

A. It was a shock to the readership. The merger itself was the biggest change and the shock of it all - the readers had to get used to the fact that there was no longer going to be two large metro papers in the city of Milwaukee. There was going to be one. And for the p.m. readers, it was a change of cycle for them.

Q. Initially the Journal Sentinel's circulation was in the 320,000 range daily. And then it started declining, ultimately to about 275,000 for the new paper. Now the circulation is back above 300,000 daily. How difficult was it to recover and how did you do it?

A. We're going back to where we should be, hopefully to our rightful place for this market. The circulation department has licked a lot of the initial service and delivery problems, and now the newspaper has one of the lowest complaint records in the industry. In terms of growing circulation, we're putting out a really good newspaper and we've stabilized the newspaper. It is consistent now. It's not only finding its sea legs, but it's finding itself. There is a growing sense of "this is my newspaper.'' We had to develop that again.

Q. What do you think people want in a newspaper?

A. They want local news. At least in this kind of market. There is a reason why people aren't reading newspapers. It's because they don't appeal to them.

Q. What is local news?

A. Local news is providing the most comprehensive set of stories and information about what is happening in your metro area, day in and day out. You are aware of what the community feels like and what is important to it and you are reflecting that. Of course, that means covering what's going on in governmental areas, police courts, etc. The newspaper also should be the single source of entertainment news, what to do, how to have fun, how to be an interesting person. It should be the place where business people can find out what is cooking in the business community.

Sports has to be strong, to put events into a national perspective. Each section is slightly different. The hardest thing of all is to provide a personality to the newspaper that is reflective of the community.

Q. What gives a paper personality?

A. Gil Spencer (retired editor of the Denver Post) used to say you go in there and cover the news and then you start turning the lights on. I had in my brain this picture of the marquee with lights on it. The lights would be the local columnists, the people and parts of the paper that are distinctive. And that it is written in a tone and a voice that feels familiar to the community. It's also an editorial voice that is strong and credible.

Q. When you designed this new newspaper, how did you go about giving it personality and how much of the traditional format did you keep?

A. Neither paper, for instance, had a daily entertainment section and we added that and it's one of the most popular things. We have an A section which is national news, front-page stories, we have a B section - the local section, which is zoned three ways - and we have business and sports. We also have a Monday business section and health sections and food sections once a week, and a Weekend Cue (the entertainment section).

Q. What did readers like and dislike?

A. The most reaction we got was to the design and they had to get used to it. But the one thing that kept coming up was the size of the body type. We made it bigger. Both the type and the size of the leading makes it extremely easy to read. That was a very popular change when we went larger.

Q. What advice would you give to a fellow editor faced with the similar challenge of merging a newspaper?

A. Oh, gee. It's so difficult. I think you have to have a lot of self-confidence and a really good grounding in this business. And a sense of compassion and of community.

Q. How did you combine the two staffs?

A. We put together the structure of the staff and the first thing we did was announce what it would look like. Then we posted all the top editing positions and had an open application process for all the jobs. And then we moved to the next level of editing positions and so forth. And the editors selected the reporters and photographers and staff level jobs. That's the only way we could have done it. It would have been so unfair to have gone around, tapping people on the shoulder saying, you'll be this and you'll be that. We had to come up with a fair and equitable process, but it was really wrenching.

Q. It must have been rough on you personally.

A. Oh, sure, it takes a personal toll. You're in the public eye and you have to be available for all the public interviews and you're being criticized constantly and you're aware of the human toll on the staff and you know how difficult, how really difficult it is on the people in the newsroom. It is tough. You feel for everybody on the staff.

Q. You've had tabloid journalism done to you from the local press.

A. Yes, and it's really troubling.

Q. What does this say about our profession?

A. You know what it says? It says the people that we cover, when they come to us and say, "You have done us wrong." One way or another, we need to listen to that, because there is the possibility that we have. And that fairness really needs to be first and foremost in what we do for a living and by that, I'm not saying pull your punches. I'm just saying be fair. Give people ample time and ability to respond. Use a complete accounting of what they say. Do not be lazy in your reporting and just go and write the same thing that the previous person wrote and pick up the same stuff over and over again. Check it out. Some of the laziness I see in some of that kind of reporting is really troubling.

Q. How do you combat that kind of reporting on your own staff?

A. You talk about it to your editors and staff. You make it a topic of conversation. You send stories back if they don't meet that measure. One thing I've said to reporters and editors is that I think it would be very good if we all spent the day being the subject of a story ... then we'd all see what it is like to be at the beginning, middle and end of a story. The other thing that I think is extremely troubling is the overuse of anonymous sources, especially when it gives people a chance to take a shot at someone. Everybody has a right to face his or her accuser. The reader has a right to know who the accuser is. When you address the use of anonymous sources or other things like that, you're changing culture and standards in the newsroom and if it's been widely accepted to use anonymous sources or to go with one source or to get it in the newspaper fast, even if the person hasn't been gotten for comment - then as you start saying we're not going to do that anymore, you're going to meet with resistance.

Q. So now 18 months later, what are you most proud of about the Journal Sentinel?

A. The paper is coming into its own and we've made the hard changes and people are more comfortable with the changes we've made. Now we can really start focusing on good writing, good stories, great enterprise, and doing what we all get into this business to do - put out a great newspaper.

Price is a reporter for the Baltimore Sun.